Lifetime bans in professional sports

Major League Baseball is reportedly considering hitting Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez with a lifetime ban for steroid use. Let's look at some other famous examples of lifetime bans in sports.

434 B.C.: Hypatius of Rhodes is banned from competing in the Olympics after failing to disclose to officials that he is descended from Zeus.

1874: After he is discovered cheating, Pete McGraw is barred from gambling in the Long Branch Saloon. Sentence extended to "life" when McGraw does not survive the gunshot wounds.

1920: Eight Chicago White Sox players are banned for conspiring to throw the 1919 World Series, in what was the least-violent crime committed in Chicago that week.

1927: In Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals, player Billy Coutu assaults a referee, earning him a lifetime suspension. The N.H.L. subsequently adopts a zero-tolerance policy on fighting, handing out over 4,800 lifetime bans over the next 85 years.